“I can Disintegrate if I want to”
Relearning to love lasers in Diablo III
Broadly speaking, I enjoy Blizzard’s games—I just forget they exist. Hence my surprise one evening at finding Diablo III still installed on my hard drive. I have vague memories of clicking on swarms of undead, prompting my Wizard to melt them with a big, magic laser. I’m pretty sure it was an enjoyable time. I head in to investigate. As I load into a town, I remember where I’d left off. I’d completed the main campaign, and was building towards the endgame and the higher difficulties. I load onto a bounty map and soon encounter a powerful enemy. It kills me. Suddenly, I remember why I’d quit: I didn’t know how to play the game.
Completing the game on normal difficulty is not a challenge, meaning you’re never required to learn Diablo III’s more intricate rules and systems. I’d blithely charged through the game and its expansion, zapping everything from the lowliest zombie to Diablo itself. They all fell, and I learned nothing— except that lasers are cool. Even this, it seems, is a point of contention. Figuring I should work out how to play Diablo III, I search for the highest-rated Wizard builds. The laser skill, Disintegrate, almost never features. It seems I need to diversify my approach.
Live The Beam
I try builds involving arcane projectiles, electric shocks, and meteors falling from the sky. I even start paying attention to my gear, figuring out what stats to prioritize and what sets to start collecting. It works well, and I have some success, but I’m not having fun. There’s some pretty cool abilities in the arsenal, but none of them are a giant death laser.
With respect to the theorycrafters and min-maxers, this is a singleplayer game. I can Disintegrate if I want to. Luckily, it seems my foray into effective wizardry has armed me with enough knowledge about the game’s systems that even a noneffective build can thrive. I might not be reaching my potential, but, with some careful positioning and using my secondary skills and teleports, my laser is once again clearing dungeons. Hopefully I’ll remember all of these lessons when I return to the game in another few years.